User blog:RuckusQuantum/Ruckus's Story
Pre-script: I didn't come here for your sympathies, to be honest. I'm just telling whatever's inside my head. ---- Hello. If you don't yet know me, I'm RuckusQuantum, also known as Ruckus and Charles. I've been here in the site for more than two years now, and as some of the older users here might know, all those times I had gotten through a lot of ups and downs. My ups were when I managed to post a story that looked good to me - My downs were when that story got deleted (either by request or due to failure to mee the QS). It was a roller coaster ride of rejoices and grievings, and let me tell you, it's nowhere close to fun (it's daunting). In fact, at some point, things here got so jumpy and trippy for me I almost gave up on this whole writing thing and actually tried to get creepypastas out of my life... But well, somehow, I managed to hang on a little bit longer than I first thought. Honestly, I absolutely have no idea to whom or which I should credit my two years of survival, either to my friends here or to my stubbornness and perseverance, but I guess that doesn't really matter... At least I'm here, right? I came to this website hoping I could post my own stories and somehow get some recognition I really craved for. I was a writer, I knew it to myself, and I thought, "maybe I should take this talent somewhere else... somewhere other than pen and paper." I registered to the site, wrote my first story in an hour, posted it and - not to anyone's surprise - it got deleted in a moment's notice without warning at all (due to it not meeting the all-encompassing Quality Standards). I think it was ImGonnaBeThatGuy, CPW former admin, who did it, although I can't be bothered to check. But the point is, it devastated me. I can actually remember feeling like shit reading the automated message that said the story I wrote got banished from this site... Although unlike the rest, I mostly kept myself shut about it. Instead, I strived to improve. I think I did... somehow. Some time after a few more stories of mine got deleted, I eventually figured out how to do it right. Since then, I started posting creepypastas that actually remained in the site for some considerable time (months I think). I was satisfied with it and was very happy and contented of myself... Until I read a message that told me that all my stories are subpar and barely got pass the Quality Standards. Of course, I got depressed... not to the point that I considered killing myself, but to the point that I almost thought about the thing the whole time. And it really made me sad and frustrated and angry of myself. I asked myself, "Am I really a good writer?" I began doubting myself and my abilities. People told me I wrote well, that I was that one student the school might not have for a long time, but I imagined: "what if they were just saying it to keep me from ruining myself? What if they did it out of mercy? Out of fear?" Then out of pure dissatisfaction, I asked Underscorre to delete all those stories (I remade one of these later on) and post them instead on Pastebin. You can still find the links here. Note: Don't read them. Their utter garbage. But if you do want to head on, first of all, know that I wrote these stories long before I got a proper grasp at writing creepypastas. They are terrible, and I shall admit all its faults as a product of my ignorance... So that happened. And I was so down I felt like I was kissing Earth's bedrock. So instead of writing, I focused on my other prominent talent and interest: graphic artistry. For those who yet don't know, I was the one who designed the Wiki's wordmark (the graphic thing at the top left corner of the page). I made some other stuff like this before. For those who remember the blog I made about all the graphics I made for users, that is. As I'm currently having a hard time finding the link to the Creativity Spree blog, your help is greatly appreciated. See my profile page. It's gone through a lot of changes. The current one, I spent an entire week trying to get all those things right. It was hard, but it certainly paid off... I was having a good time being the site's graphic artist, and I considered abandoning writing altogether and instead focusing all my attention to this old-yet-untouched hobby and interest of mine... And then the Reddit controversy happened, and it was the thing that really forced me back to writing. I talked about this with only three people (one of these three being the deceased Tio Rallyn, a.k.a. Tiololo - God bless his soul), so I won't be surprised if you guys haven't heard about it yet. But I guess it's about time I open myself to this. The Reddit controversy began when I made a small, unassuming thread on the subreddit /r/AdobeIllustrator. In that thread I will be tentatively titling "Youngest Designer You Know", I asked some fellow Redditors who is the youngest artist/designer they've ever met. Kind of wanting to show off a bit, I said I was 14 (which I really am) and claimed I had already done a lot of stuff (I failed to specify what "stuff" that was, so it was wrong on my part). First comments, people asked me to post one of my work, ignoring the topic of the thread altogether. I did it with no reluctance at all; my work - a typographical poster about Las Vegas - was met with constructive criticism (not hurtful in the least, even pleasant) and some praised me for being so good at something adults can hardly do. Of course, I was satisfied and proud of myself. I spent a few years honing that skill, and I felt like all my efforts were paying off well... Then things went horribly wrong when this guy I shall name "Jake" (that's an alias) commented that: I can't be called a graphic designer because I'm not doing it professionally. Graphic designers are those who have studied the principles of design and has known the craft for a very long time. I obviously haven't, because this work looks cheap and amateurish. My work was not even remotely good - to his eyes, it was dreadful. Garbage. You're not a graphic designer, and don't daydream about you being one in the future! With that kind of attitude, you can't possibly a good designer. Grow up and know your shit first. I can't assure you that this is what Jake exactly wanted to tell me (I can barely remember, honestly; because I chose to erase it out of my memory), but it's somehow close to this... But that's not the first. Many more ridiculing comments came in like a train from London, calling me "arrogant" and "amateur" and "wannabe"... the list goes on and on and on. I had never felt so helpless that time. I was so vulnerable and so open you could practically see my soul with your naked eyes and touch it with your bare hands. When I realized I just angered many people and messed up my image, I profusely apologized to Jake and the other Redditors for bothering them. I even privately messaged one of them. It was all against my will, but I had a reputation to take care of (sooner or later, I figured out my reputation could no longer be salvaged - it was ruined). I told them this would not happen again. Then after much thinking and sorrying to myself, I shut down my original Reddit account and stayed out of it for a month to let everything cool down a bit (that's why my current Reddit username is "TheBigProblem", because I was afraid that if I keep using that account, someone might start harassing and insulting me when they find out who I was and what I did). So after that depressing ordeal, I decided to make a new Reddit account and unfollow /r/AdobeIllustrator. I separated myself from the art and design community entirely and instead went to literature and writing subreddits (like /r/Books and /r/WritingPrompts). That /r/AdobeIllustrator subreddit is better out of my life; it gives me memories I rather not recall. ---- So now, let's talk about writing. My writing. I'm not really a good writer. In fact, I'm probably one of the many wannabe writers this wiki will ever have. I had been writing stuff since I was like 12, mostly articles for our campus newspaper. It was fun and it helped me develop the creative side of my mind, and although it was mentally stressing and (at some point in time) physically taxing, I held on to it like my life relied on it. It was the first time I actually thought I was going to achieve something that me, my family, my friends and my teachers never thought I could; the feeling was nothing short of ecstatic. It was great hearing people call me a "blessed kid", a "writing prodigy", a "wordsmith" or a "future star"... I began as a, you guessed it right, wannabe writer - bad grammar, bad sentence structure, poor word choices, you name it - but that didn't stop me from doing what I love. I joined contests and to my school and family's satisfaction, I won almost all of them... After several personal grammar improvement activities, I got a lot better, but still terrible compared to right now. (Truth be told, I actually learnt proper grammar from reading stories here in the Wiki, and I'm not ashamed of it, not at all!) Short, 8-paragraph essays were all I wrote in my early years, but never did I know I'd soon get myself into all this creepypasta mess. Reading horror novels and watching horror movies never even crossed my mind, much more creating one. Slenderman. That word sounds all too familiar, right? My creepypasta journey began when I stumbled upon a 9GAG post about the Slenderman. I was scrolling down the page, barely glancing at one post and another, when a dark, static-ridden image caught my eye. I stopped scrolling down the moment my vision focused on the image. At first, I couldn't see anything but trees and lit lampposts; it took me a minute or two to see the tall, thin and faceless figure that lingered hidden in that picture. Of course, I was creeped out - I glued my eyes on it, though, as it was a hidden gem or something... "I should find out what this thing is," I thought as I clicked the post and skimmed through the comments section. It's the slenderman, you knobs!! One comment said. I Googled "slenderman" and found a vast amount of links to thousands of horror and entertainment websites that I could barely remember. First link, creepypasta.com. Second link, creepypasta.org. And then the third link, creepypasta.wikia.com. I clicked the third, and it brought me to this site... I guess you already know what happened next after that. ---- I want to talk about some of my old, deleted creepypastas. The first one I wrote is titled "The Black Candles". The story's pretty old and cliché-ridden, and quite unfortunately, it's embedded inside mt head and I can't erase the marks it has made on my mind. Basically, the plot works out like this: * Two girls have a sleepover. * One of them sees a trail of black candles outside the house. * The two stupid girls go outside and follow the candles. * Then poof, they got killed by a mad witch that fed the corpse of the two girls to her animalistic children. It was bad, you don't need to tell me. It's just like any other average creepypastas you might have read once or twice or thrice. Maybe that's the precisely the reason why it got deleted. The next story I want to talk about is something titled "Scenarios". Nothing really flashy or unique, just an anthology of short creepypastas that discusses about the many ways the world can end. An alien invasion, a massive flood, a deadly nanotechnology that got out of control and many more, each insane and stupid in their own right. Each section even has their own pictures that depicted that certain doomsday scene, pictures stolen from Google, to be specific. I think it was my first story that got to stay in the Wiki for a while. Then there's this story about the world being conquered by crazed robots. I refuse to talk about it - it's so bad I'd rather blind my eyes than read that abomination again. One thing that clung on me was a story about a disabled kid hearing his mother being choked in her room. I don't remember well, but I think the story's ending was open-ended, because either the mother hung herself or was asphyxiated by her husband. It's not so bad, really, but I deleted because... why not? I wanted to start all over again that time. ---- Maybe that's all I can share for now. You guys can conduct a Q&A session in the comments section if you want, but it's likely I won't respond to some comments. I'll try to answer your questions as honestly as I can. I'll be sure to expand this blog later, but I think that'll be a while. I'm still trying to get my shit together, really. Category:Blog posts